LungBlog

Last week, in issuing its annual review of government statistics entitled Cancer Facts and Figures for 2008, the American Cancer Society cited the “enormous progress that has been made against cancer over the past 15 years.”

Laurie Fenton Ambrose, LCA President & CEO said, “Sadly this is not true for lung cancer, which is still the biggest cancer killer and its 5 year survival rate is still only 15 percent.”

Oncothyreon Inc. reported that a study of its PX-478 treatment for lung cancer in a test on mice “resulted in significant inhibition of tumor growth.”

The test on a model of lung cancer in mice, which the Bellevue biotech said closely mimics the disease in humans, was promising and the treatment “significantly improved survival,” the company said.

The genetic mutations in cancer cells may vary in every patient, a study found, suggesting that drugs will need to be tailored more finely to small groups.

The small study, by doctors at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and scientists from a gene-reading unit of Roche Holding AG, is among the first to look comprehensively at the genes in cancerous tumors to find which genes went awry. It’s part of a new wave of medical studies using cheaper ways of reading DNA — the chemical blueprint found in every cell — that promise to change the understanding of disease.

Oncothyreon Inc. today announced the presentation of data demonstrating the effectiveness of PX-478 in a preclinical model of human lung cancer at the 8th Annual Targeted Therapies of the Treatment of Lung Cancer meeting of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer in Santa Monica, California. The data were presented on February 22, 2008, by Jorg J. Jacoby, Ph.D., Instructor, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. Oncothyreon’s PX-478 is a small molecule inhibitor of hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)-1 alpha currently in a Phase 1 trial in patients with advanced metastatic cancer and lymphoma.

Sarah Meyers, a first-year University medical resident, said patrons are able to see firsthand how smoking, diet and drinking can damage human organs.

An oversized black lung was placed next to a healthy-looking lung to show effects of lung cancer. People could see and feel an actual brain tumor.

The National Lung Cancer Partnership has announced that they are joining three distinguished organizations: the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the Oncology Nursing Society Foundation and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer in continuing the mission to increase opportunities for lung cancer researchers by co-sponsoring new lung cancer research grants.

Treating health care as a commodity from which private businesses derive huge profits has produced a system that willingly allows uninsured Americans and minorities to suffer and die from treatable cancers at a much higher rate than white Americans who have health insurance.

Joan Gaeta’s husband and their five kids threw her a party Saturday night.

Her photos greeted guests by the front entrance. Tall vases with calla lilies graced the tables. The dance floor was ready for action.

She would have loved it.

Not long after the lifelong nonsmoker died at 68 from lung cancer in July, her family started talking about an event in her memory.

But while mortality from lung cancer decreased in men in France, it is gaining ground “in a worrying way” among French women (+4.2% every year since 2000), as more French women continue to smoke or even take up smoking. Many women in France smoke as an aid to dieting and resist quitting for fear they will gain weight. Lung cancer has become the third the most common cancer among women in France, after breast and colo-rectal cancer, overtaking cancer of the uterus, which fell to fourth place.

- Eli Lilly and Co on Friday said an advisory panel to European regulators has recommended that its Alimta drug be approved for the new use as a first-line treatment for advanced lung cancer.